Chapter Eight : Ghosts Don't Knock

The gallery walls were white, almost cruel in their cleanliness.

Tunde's solo exhibition was set to open in two days.

And Amaka stood in the center of it all—staring at a painting she hadn't seen before.

It was her.

Not just her face—her spirit. Fierce, tender, fracturing and whole at once. The strokes bled vulnerability.

"Is this what I look like through your eyes?" she whispered.

Tunde stood behind her. "That's what you look like when you're not performing."

She turned slowly. "You weren't going to show me?"

"I wasn't sure I could," he admitted. "You make art and suddenly people think they're owed the truth. But this... this wasn't for them."

She stepped closer. "Then who was it for?"

Tunde smiled, small and tired. "Me."

Later that evening, her doorbell rang.

She wasn't expecting anyone.

She opened it—and time stilled.

It was Ifeyinwa.

Her former business partner. The woman she once called sister. The woman who'd leaked the photos that started the storm.

She stood with an apology clutched between her teeth

"You don't answer my calls," Ifeyinwa said. "So I thought I'd come in person."

Amaka folded her arms. "Bold."

"I came to say sorry."

"Sorry for the betrayal, or sorry it backfired?"

There it was—the edge that never dulled.

Ifeyinwa sighed. "You were always the star, Amaka. I just... wanted my own light."

Amaka didn't blink. "So you burned me to glow?"

A beat. Then two.

"Just hear me out," Ifeyinwa pleaded. "The investors—some of them are still circling. But they want you gone. Both of you. They think this 'romance arc' makes you volatile."

"Then tell them to invest in cardboard," Amaka snapped. "Because I'm not flattening myself for comfort."

When Tunde came home, she told him everything.

He listened, then said quietly, "You know this means the storm isn't over."

"I know."

"And if I stay beside you, I become the next thing they try to dismantle."

Amaka looked him in the eye. "Then don't stay beside me."

He blinked. "What?"

"Don't stand next to me," she said. "Stand with me. Be seen. Be quoted. Be the man they can't erase with one bad article."

Tunde exhaled, shoulders tight. "You want me in the fire with you."

She smiled. "You came back into it, remember?"

He crossed the room, slow and deliberate. Took her face in his hands.

"No more borrowed skies," he said. "No more shadows."

Then he kissed her.

And it tasted like truth.